Champions League: How Manchester City scores many goals against Leipzig even without a classic center forward

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Nathan Aké takes the lead for Manchester City

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Clive Brunskill / Getty Images

The spectators left the Manchester City stadium fairly unmoved.

Less than ten minutes after the final whistle of the 6-3 win against RB Leipzig, the venue was empty.

This is not unusual in England, regardless of the result, the city crowd is also used to being spoiled with a large number of goals - in the Premier League there had been two 5-0 victories against Norwich and Arsenal so far.

Shooting festivals are routine at Manchester City.

And that, although the club has to get by without a top international striker and thus in theory has a disadvantage compared to the competition on the national and European stage.

• After signing Romelu Lukaku, Chelsea now have the goalscorer that the club has been missing for a long time,

• Manchester United relies on Cristiano Ronaldo's goals for the new season,

• FC Bayern has Robert Lewandowski,

• Borussia Dortmund Erling Haaland.

Manchester City said goodbye to their record goalscorer Sergio Agüero in the summer and struggled to find a replacement on the transfer market.

Wish striker Harry Kane stayed with Tottenham Hotspur, with Ronaldo the club is said to have hesitated too long.

At City, the tasks are shared

City already showed last season that the absence of a high-class center forward does not have to be a problem. Aguero was still there, but hardly played a role. He only scored four goals, and only when the third championship in four years was practically certain. Instead of a target player in the middle of the storm, coach Pep Guardiola relied on the division of tasks that is typical for him. The row of three in the attack rotated constantly. The midfield partially moved up into the storm. Everything was in flux. The best goalscorer last season was fittingly Ilkay Gündogan.

This season, Manchester City continues to do the same. Instead of relying on

one

goal scorer, the whole team takes part in scoring goals. The eleven goals of the season in the Premier League so far came from nine different shooters. For comparison: At Manchester United, the eleven goals are also distributed among five players. The six goals against Leipzig were scored by six different professionals. And even if one of them was own-goal scorer Nordi Mukiele, it should be noted that Manchester City is a goal machine at full speed even without a center forward of the Lukaku / Ronaldo / Lewandowksi / Haaland format.

Guardiola spoke after the 6: 3 about the fact that he and his team were aware of the lack of a solo entertainer at the top.

“We're the same guys as last season.

We don't have a player who can score 20 or 25 goals, ”he said.

The way out of this dilemma: »We have to play better, press better, bring more players into the penalty area.

We have a lot of players in the penalty area with every cross - that helps us score goals. "

Guardiola relies on standards

Aside from the danger zone population, there's another reason Manchester City does well without any real tip. In the past, goals often fell like this: Pass or dribble to the baseline, cross, Agüero only had to hold out his foot. Without Agüero, City's game has changed. The game against Leipzig illustrated that. All goals came about in different ways. Three hits were scored according to the standards, actually atypical for a Guardiola team. The goal from record entry Jack Grealish was the result of individual class, the goal from João Cancelo was the result of a long-range shot. Then there was Mukiele's own goal. Ferran Torres, who played in the center of the storm, remained without a hit.

The fact that Guardiola still wanted to get a center forward in the summer suggests a certain perplexity, a mistrust in their own methods.

Or it should be a reinsurance for phases in which the current style of play does not work - that has existed in the past few years.

The many national titles with Manchester City in England are all well and good, but Guardiola knows he has to win the Champions League for his tenure to be a success.

Last season, the team was closer than ever in the fifth year under Guardiola, but failed in the final at Chelsea, 0-1 due to the goal from Kai Havertz.

Kane and even more Ronaldo would have represented an attempt to win the Champions League at any cost in the coach's possibly last season at Manchester City.

In a sport where details are decisive, a proven goalscorer would have minimized the risk of failing again.

A 25-goal striker would not have been a guarantee for winning the silver cup with the huge handles.

Just like the failed engagement of an Agüero successor does not have to be an exclusion criterion.

Manchester City are competitive even without a high-class center forward - that became clear again against Leipzig.